Moonwalker a reluctant hero

Ready to launch ... Neil Armstrong waves before boarding the van that will take the crew to the rocket in 1969. Photo: AP

NEIL ARMSTRONG was a quiet American, whose unassuming nature contrasted with his inescapable fame and the towering triumph of the United States space program.
He was a brilliant pilot who calmly landed the Apollo 11 lunar module on the Sea of Tranquillity with less than a minute's fuel left, and then made the ''giant leap for mankind'' as the first human to set foot on the moon.
The achievement fulfilled a pledge eight years earlier by the president John F.Kennedy, and represented a Cold War public relations victory over the Soviet Union.

On July 21, 1969, Armstrong and his co-pilot, Edwin ''Buzz'' Aldrin, steered their lunar landing craft, Eagle, to a level, rock-strewn plain on the moon.
''Houston, Tranquillity base here,'' Armstrong radioed to mission control. ''The Eagle has landed.''
''Roger, Tranquillity,'' mission control replied. ''We copy you on the ground. You've got a bunch of guys about to turn blue. We're breathing again. Thanks a lot.''

The same could have been said for the millions of people around the world watching on television.
A few hours later, Armstrong was planting his feet on the lunar surface. He said: ''That's one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind.''

Soon Aldrin joined Armstrong, bounding a little like kangaroos in the low lunar gravity, while the command ship pilot, Michael Collins, remained in orbit about 100 kilometres overhead, awaiting their return.

The moonwalk lasted two hours and 19 minutes, long enough to let the astronauts test their footing in the fine and powdery surface and set up a television camera and scientific instruments and collect rock samples.
''As long as there are history books,'' said Charles Bolden jnr, the administrator of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, ''Neil Armstrong will be included in them, remembered for taking humankind's first small step on a world beyond our own.''
The US President, Barack Obama, said in a statement that Armstrong was among the great American heroes. When he set foot on the surface of the moon, ''he delivered a moment of human achievement that will never be forgotten''

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